Marcus Fiesel was reported missing at an Anderson Township park Aug. 15. Investigators now think the 3-year-old was dead more than a week before then. / Provided photo

Back in April little Marcus Fiesel was found wandering in the streets of Middletown. An investigation of the family home found that the child was poorly cared for, there was little food in the house and the walls and furniture were smeared with feces. Children's Services got a court order to take custody of the child and place him in a foster home.

He would have been better off had he been left playing in traffic.

Community responsibility

The horrifying details of Marcus' death were revealed Monday in a press conference by the Hamilton County prosecutor. Marcus was bound and left in a hot closet for two days in early August while his foster parents, Liz and David Carroll, the people being paid to care for him, attended a family reunion in Williamsburg, Ky.

The Carrolls both are charged with involuntary manslaughter. Investigators believe Marcus was dead when the Carrolls returned to their Clermont County home and that David Carroll then incinerated the body.

What happened to this child provokes a seething outrage. He was our responsibility. We, the community, decided to take him from his mother because she wasn't fit. Instead of seeing that he was properly cared for, we passed him on to a contract agency, Lifeway for Youth, which promised to find him a good home, for a daily fee.

Inappropriate placement

It is difficult to imagine a more inappropriate setting for any child, let alone one with Marcus' special needs, than the house of David and Liz Carroll. She has a heart condition and he is bipolar.

In June David Carroll was accused of domestic violence. He brought a woman described as his girlfriend to live in the house. The couple had four children of their own, another foster child and other children they provided day care for.

According to accounts by family and friends, David Carroll didn't like having so many children around. Neither he nor his wife held outside jobs. The family apparently lived on the money they received from day-care clients and their cut of the foster care fees, which in the case of Marcus amounted to about $33 per day.

Elaborate lies

Marcus came to the public's attention Aug. 15, the day Liz Carroll reported him missing in what investigators say was an elaborate set of lies that had police and volunteers searching the area around Juilfs Park in Anderson Township for several days.

Liz Carroll had said she had Marcus and three other children with her at the park when she passed out from a heart condition, and that Marcus had disappeared in the confusion of her being taken to the hospital by ambulance.

Investigators now believe that by the time Liz Carroll started telling her story, Marcus had probably been dead for at least nine days.

But truth be told, he had gone missing from those responsible for his well-being months earlier.

No one was watching

How did the Carrolls ever get approved to be foster parents? What kind of oversight did Butler County exercise over Lifeway to ensure that the agency adhered to proper standards? How could caseworkers from Lifeway and the county, who supposedly visited the home, not be concerned about how many children were in the house, about how many adults lived there, about how none of the adults seemed to be employed?

The Carrolls are charged with Marcus' death. Lifeway has lost its contract with Butler County and several other agencies.

But the responsibility for what happens to children like Marcus ultimately rests with us, the community. The responsibility for this cannot be outsourced. This was a helpless child in desperate need of care, and we failed him.